posted at 7:41 pm on December 11, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

A quick addendum to what Allahpundit already predicted this afternoon; I think we can safely conclude which side Rand Paul is picking in this latest iteration of a budget battle, courtesy of the bipartisan machinations of Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan, and here’s the video to prove it. If Congress’s conservatives do decide to stage a major outcry against the plan, I’d expect Paul to be front-and-center, via RCP:

Paul: This budget deal is worse than a continuing resolution because it actually increases spending by $60 billion in the first two years and we know the history of Congress is that they lie. They don’t keep their word. So after two years, no budget deal is worth the paper it’s written on, it’s only worth something in the first year or two and, mark my words, they’ll go back on this deal also after a year or two and they don’t like it. So we should increase the spending cuts.

Cavuto: I think it is an example of the type of deal — maybe I’m wrong, I don’t want to put deals in his mouth or head — that a Chris Christie would come up with where they get deal done, it might not be perfect to either side but it keeps moving the ball forward. What do you think of that?

Paul: But here’s the problem, it doesn’t. It moves it backwards. It is worse than the status quo. The status quo will spend $60 billion less than the budget deal over the next two years. They do some ledger domain and do some shell games and they want to say that there’s less addition to the deficit, but over ten years, this deal will add $7 trillion to the deficit. It does not significantly alter our course. We’re still on a course for disaster.

What ever they pass that is not a continuing resolution becomes the PERMANENT new baseline for adding a few percentage a year to. Year after year after year, not counting all the new spending they will be adding, year after year, or rather, vote after vote after vote.

What ever they pass that is not a continuing resolution becomes the PERMANENT new baseline for adding a few percentage a year to. Year after year after year, not counting all the new spending they will be adding, year after year, or rather, vote after vote after vote.

astonerii on December 11, 2013 at 7:45 PM

That is true, but even considering that the CR uses an increasing baseline – the CR using the old increasing baseline is still better than this crap sandwich offered by the GOP.

Cavuto: “I think it is an example of the type of deal — maybe I’m wrong, I don’t want to put deals in his mouth or head — that a Chris Christie would come up with where they get deal done, it might not be perfect to either side but it keeps moving the ball forward.”

There’s a headline running on “Yahoo News” right now: “What happens when President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush ride in Air Force One together”

A photo op of how the political class works together…to serve their own interests.

Why are we paying for the ex-Secretary of State, and all of her security personnel and staffers, to travel to Mandela’s funeral? Why are we paying for George W. Bush and all of his security personnel and staffers to travel to Mandela’s funeral? Why are we paying for Laura Bush and Bill Clinton to fly to Mandela’s funeral? Why are we paying for 24 members of congress to fly to Mandela’s funeral,and all of their attendant security personnel and staffers, particularly when the President and two former President’s and their wives were already attending?

Because they could get away with sticking the American taxpayers with the tab for their photo ops. Why? They’re members of that elitist private club known as the political class…and they deign to reign.

So now we’re discussing a budget deal wherein the GOP gets… nothing… except another round of photo ops. Those conservatives who dare object are vilified as ‘ridiculous’ by the Speaker of the House. Why?

Rand opposes primarying corrupt GOP elites? Isn’t that how he was elected with tea party support? Yet now he opposes the only strategy we have to take back the party from the corrupt elites? Rand Paul has been very disappointing to me, count me as unimpressed.

What ever they pass that is not a continuing resolution becomes the PERMANENT new baseline for adding a few percentage a year to. Year after year after year, not counting all the new spending they will be adding, year after year, or rather, vote after vote after vote.

[astonerii on December 11, 2013 at 7:45 PM]

You bring up a good point, Astonerii. If I understand you, what you are saying is that because Ryan struck a deal allowing an increase of $63B now, that $63B will also be added in every future budget for a ten year increase of $630B in spending?

Cavuto: “I think it is an example of the type of deal — maybe I’m wrong, I don’t want to put deals in his mouth or head — that a Chris Christie would come up with where they get deal done, it might not be perfect to either side but it keeps moving the ball forward.”

Might not be perfect to either side? What are the Dems bitching about tonight? That the GOP didn’t cave enough? That the parasites might actually have to put in some hours at a job?

Sorry a compromise is when both sides are unhappy and the Dems couldn’t be happier with Benedict Ryan.

The next budget will be baseline.
The baseline is +40 billion next year. Figure a run up at 5% a year… Comes out to $503 billion over ten years.
It is how they work. In fact the only cuts we ever got was sequester, and the only reason it still exists is because of divided government. Somewhere along the lines Republicans in this congress decided they love Obama and Reid now.

This is the democrats budget deal – they have a large majority in the Senate and the President is a Democrat. The Republicans should put their own budget forward and let the democrats vote it down.

Why do we continue to pretend that we have any power to affect the outcome because we have a small majority in the House? We need to start operating like the minority parties do in a parliamentary system.

I’m tired of seeing Rand Paul’s carping every other day. He’s as tiresome as John McCain. He’s a freshman Senator, after all. He has no experience in government, but he seems to think this is his path to power. He’s a right wing version of Barack Obama.

Senate Republicans scrubbing the Ryan-Murray budget deal have come across a little-noticed provision that will limit the GOP’s ability to block tax increases in future years.

The bill includes language from the Senate Democrats’ budget to void a budget “point of order” against replacing the sequester cuts with tax increases.

The process is quite complicated, but in practice it grants Harry Reid the authority to send tax increases to the House with a bare majority, rather than the 60 vote threshold that would be required under the point of order.

The provision has angered key Republican Senators. Reeling from Harry Reid’s unprecedented use of the “nuclear option” to end the filibuster on presidential nominations, they are incredulous that Paul Ryan would have backed another limit to their power.

“This is an appalling power grab that should never have been allowed to be in a final agreement. It’s essentially the ‘nuclear option’ part two, eroding minority rights in the Senate even further. Harry Reid must be very happy,” a Senate GOP aide says.

A House aide says Reid can send tax bills to the House all he wants, since they will never fly in the lower chamber. “House Republicans would never approve a tax increase,” he says.

While the point is true, the change will likely give Reid a potent political cudgel with which to hit Republicans over, since passage of a bill can put pressure on the other chamber to follow suit.

In the Ryan-Murray bill, the change is found on 17-18 in the legislative text, where the bill sets up a “deficit neutral reserve fund” and incorporates 57 individual sections of the Senate Democrats’ budget as having “force and effect.”

These provisions are a big loophole for Paygo rules that give senators the authority to raise a point of order on spending and tax bills, setting a 60 vote threshold. There is a detailed explanation for the process in this 2009 document from then-Senator Judd Gregg’s staff when he was Budget Committee ranking member.

Although the (current) Senate rules generally require 60 votes for passage of a bill, a bill can be amended after cloture has been achieved. In the case of the fall shutdown fight, Republicans helped provide the 60 votes to obtain cloture on the CR, after which Reid took out the defunding Obamacare provision and passed the bill with a bare majority.

Under normal rules, even after cloture had been achieved, any amendment would still be subject to a point of order and 60 vote threshold if it “pays for” spending increases by raising taxes. The Ryan-Murray deal waives that point of order in many cases, prompting the fear that Reid will use it to put political pressure on the House to replace the sequester with new taxes.

Paul Ryan… The guy who came up with a 50 year budget that balances around the time the last baby boomers die, saddling younger generations with tens upon tens of trillions more debt.
You are surprised that he is allowing the government an easy button on increasing taxes?

A wise person once said watch what they do not what they say. Is this proof enough that the leadership in both parties are joined at the hip? Why did Boehner remove all conservative committee chairman and replace with his own people? I think we see why now! Unless we remove all this scum from office through the primary system we are in for worse down the road, and we will deserve it.

I sure hope that Rand Paul tries to filibuster this and finds others to help him. I’m furious with the RINOs for trying to screw military retiree families yet again by taking away what very pitiful little cost of living increase my husband has been getting (that comes nowhere near keeping up with the real inflation rate).

Oh, by the way, here’s a budget chart for the next ten years showing spending with and without the sequester. Ace has it up in a post and I just found it again while looking for what each years sequestration cut might be, and I come to find out the sequestration is just a little less of a joke than this new Ryan-Murray deal.

Dusty on December 11, 2013 at 8:28 PM

Looking at the second chart here indicates that the deal is better for increasing defense spending versus the sequester.